Capital Gains Tax

Multiple options. Contradictory advice. And a deadline that's approaching fast. Many taxpayers find themselves in this situation at the beginning of the year when they have to make tax-saving investments. Are you also confused? Before you make a choice, go through our cover story to know which is the best option for you. We have ranked 10 of the most common investments under Section 80C on five basic parameters: returns, safety, flexibility, liquidity and taxability. Every investment has its pros and cons.

In an interview with ET Now, Dipan Mehta, Member, BSE & NSE, shares his views on the movement of the Indian market and the prospect of an FDI hike in the media sector. Excerpts: ET Now: I reckon this should be positive for most companies which have got some bit of foreign shareholding or a foreign collaboration because there is a possibility that the I&B ministry is going to send a proposal to raise the FDI limit across almost all media...

BY: Jafar Baig Anna Covaco is trying to sell her ancestral property - a piece of land worth nearly Rs 10 crores in today's market. Being a senior citizen, she has put her son John in-charge to dispose off the asset. To be eligible for tax exemption , John was advised that he needs to invest in another property within a year. Still confused, he has approached a financial advisor to help him out with the nitty-gritties . Buying property for investment purposes and selling it later...

Mangal Dutt Sharma does not get overly perturbed when his stocks take a beating. "If possible, I book short-term losses and adjust them against other capital gains," says the Faridabad-based retired PSU manager. In 2008, when the capital markets were crumbling, Sharma booked short-term losses of up to Rs 1 lakh. Over the past six years, he has adjusted those losses against short-term capital gains from stocks and mutual funds. It's a simple strategy that smart taxpayers like Sharma use to...

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will propose nearly doubling the U.S. capital gains tax rate on short-term investments to 39.6 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. A Clinton campaign official said the Clinton rate plan would affect investments held between one and two years, which are currently taxed at a 20 percent capital gains rate, the newspaper reported.

MUMBAI: To prevent market abuse, the BSE has written to the finance ministry to curb tax arbitrage between listed and unlisted securities. Currently, the long term capital gains tax on listed companies is nil if the investment is held for more than a year. The same for unlisted companies is 20% if the investment in companies is sold before three years. "Companies use exchange platform to take advantage of nil long term capital gains tax,...

Property disputes are a common occurrence in India. Since greed is a great leveller , wars over wealth take place across the strata, from low-income households to ultrarich families. Even an iron-clad will may be challenged by unhappy beneficiaries. The obvious solution for most squabbling relatives is to take the matter to the courts. However, that is a time-consuming, tedious and expensive process, which in no way guarantees a satisfactory resolution....

MUMBAI: If the change in tax rules for debt funds is worrying you, the 1:1 bonus announced on Infosys shares could help reduce your tax liability. If you buy Infosys shares now and sell half your holding after the bonus date, the notional loss you will incur can be adjusted against gains from debt funds, stocks, gold and even property. "Selling the (original) shares soon after they are ex-bonus results in a short-term capital loss,...

NEW DELHI: The I-T department, which believes that Hutch-Vodafone deal falls under the capital gains tax ambit in India, may scrutinise similar transactions. Transfer of beneficial interest of any asset in the country was liable to capital gains tax, a department source said. The source said Hutchison and Vodafone have sought approval from the Indian authorities, including Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), as the asset is in the country. The department...

MUMBAI: The government may review the taxation of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and the details may be announced in the Budget, according to sources. A meeting on Thursday between finance minister P Chidambaram and representatives of foreign and institutional brokerage houses like JM Morgan Stanley, DSP Merrill Lynch, Kotak Securities, JP Morgan, UBS, Credit Lyonnais Securities threw up a number of suggestions. Sources said the finance minister did not make any...

The plan to encourage overseas firms to raise capital in India through Indian Depository Receipts, or IDRs, as they are popularly known, appears to have hit a road block, with the revenue department not in favour of granting long-term capital gains tax benefits for such issues. IDRs are derivative instruments like Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) and American Depository Receipts (ADRs) which have shares as the underlying asset and denominated in the local currency ?

NEW YORK: Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton will propose policies including "reforming capital gains taxation" in coming weeks to fight an excessive focus on short-term profits in capital markets, according to a campaign talking points document seen by Reuters. Clinton will speak on Monday about her vision for the US economy , including addressing income inequality and encouraging longer-term investment horizons. The memo...

MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today called for ending exemption of capital gains tax on securities to contain various entities using capital markets to evade taxes and launder money. The government should re-think the exemption on capital gains taxes on traded securities, which listed companies enjoy, in order to avoid misuse of the trading platform to launder money and evade taxes, BSE Managing Director and Chief Executive Ashishkumar Chauhan said here today. ...

NEW DELHI: The government has rejected Cairn Energy UK's plea for an arbitration over Rs 10,247-crore tax dispute saying taxation is not covered under the UK-India Investment Promotion and Protection Treaty. The Edinburgh-based firm has however challenged saying it had invoked the bilateral investment protection treaty clause as it has not been allowed to carry out its natural course of business. Using the treaty, Cairn had last month...

NEW DELHI: Cairn Energy of UK has named former Bulgarian minister and lawyer Stanimir A Alexandrov as its arbitrator for resolution of the Rs 10,247-crore tax demand the Indian government had slapped on it using retrospective taxation. Alexandrov, who was Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria , is based out of Washington and is associated with law firm Sidley where he deals with international dispute resolution, including investor-state arbitration. ...

NEW DELHI: The finance ministry issued a draft gold monetisation scheme on Tuesday aimed at unlocking the value of the yellow metal held by Indians. It seeks to encourage participation by holding out the prospect of tax-free earnings, with deposits starting as low as 30 gm. The ministry is looking at household and institutional holdings of gold that can be used to help the country cut its dependence on imports of the metal that are a frequent source of...

Investors welcomed the government's decision to extend the exemption on long-term capital gains tax for equity purchases by three years, but were unsure how much it would trigger an upswing in share prices. Finance minister Jaswant Singh, in his interim budget on Tuesday, said that the long-term capital gains tax exemption available to investors who buy equity shares will be extended till March '07. The exemption, first granted last year, was to expire by March 31 '04. "I think it is an...

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: The government may do away with dividend distribution tax, applicable to debt mutual funds, as part of the policy measures to boost the debt market. This concession was earlier available only to equity funds. At the end of January '06, debt funds accounted for 60% of the total Rs 2,07,98,610 crore of assets under management (AUM) with the mutual fund industry. An expert group on corporate debt also recently made a strong appeal to the government to...

MUMBAI: Opening its first branch in India, Qatar-based Doha Bank today said it is open to acquisitions to scale up its operations and it will soon follow the wholly- owned subsidiary model to do business in the country, as prescribed by the Reserve Bank. "Our committed mission is to scale up the investments and once we build the brand, we will go for subsidiary...that is the commitment we made to the RBI. We will be converting into subsidiary in the near future," bank's CEO R...

Fixed maturity plans (FMPs) are closed-end funds issued for a specific maturity period, at the end of which units can be redeemed or rolled over. A rollover if offered by a mutual fund, enables investors to stay invested in the FMP for a longer period of time, until the next maturity date. CBDT has clarified that such rollover of FMPs will not attract capital gains tax, as the scheme remains the same. Rollover has become important after the modification...